An Accrington charity that offers mental-health support and counselling in the community has been boosted with £300,00 three-year lottery grant.

Maundy Relief, based on Abbey Street in Accrington has been awarded a £306,218 grant from the Big Lottery Reaching Communities Fund to develop and enhance their work with people experiencing mental ill-health.

The grant will fund a new project, Maundy Advice and Psychological Services (MAPS) which will offer a joined up approach to mental illness by providing health advice, welfare and housing advice, an outreach service as well as a range of talking therapies.

Maundy Relief’s manager, Lucy Hardwick, said the charity are delighted to have been able to secure the grant.

She said: “We are so grateful to the Big Lottery Fund for recognising our work with hard to reach, mentally unwell people and we are very excited by this opportunity to develop this innovative project to address both the causes and effects of mental ill-health in our community.”

Maundy Relief has been providing services to the local community since 1998 and provides support to vulnerable and marginalised people.

Maundy’s founder, Sister Dorothy McGregor, who died in 2013, had a keen understanding of the effect of mental illness and its devastating consequences for individuals and families.

Lucy Hardwick said: “Dorothy had deep compassion for people experiencing mental ill-health and she was ahead of her time in believing that mental health issues should be addressed holistically.

“We believe that the MAPS project will build on Dorothy’s legacy and allow us to develop a unique and highly effective service.”

The project will start in late summer and is funded for three years.

Mike Rose, who was on the bid team for the lottery funding, said: “Our success in this bid would not have been possible without the dedicated hard work of our staff team, fantastic volunteers and the loyal support of our Trustees and the local community including other agencies who supported our vision.

“We also gratefully acknowledge the valuable contributions of our service users who generously used their own experiences and gave their time to help us prepare our application.”